Excursus on the Gospel According to St. Mark

Schmidt Number: S-2368

On-line since: 23rd January, 2008

OUR
TALK
TO-DAY
must bring to a temporary
conclusion the studies which, during the last few weeks we have
connected in a somewhat loose and irregular way with the Gospel
according to Mark.

In the lectures you
have heard during this winter we have tried to make you realise that
we stand to-day at a period of transition. Even by those who consider
spiritual life in a somewhat external way, it can be noticed that a
new order of ideas and thoughts is gradually emerging, though the
people living within the new order may themselves be unaware of it.
It will therefore be well if such a stimulus can be given to your
thoughts this evening as will enable you to carry somewhat further
the spiritual scientific matter already imparted to you.

In speaking of
periods of transition, it is helpful to recall the great
“period of transition” through which human evolution
passed, often mentioned by me as the great incisive moment of the
Event of Palestine. What this moment meant we know from many things
that have been spoken of here.

When we try to form a
conception of how this most important “idea” — for
so we may call it — the Christ-idea, developed out of the
thoughts and feelings of the age immediately preceding it, it is well
to remember that the Jahve or Jehova-idea meant as much to the
ancient Hebrews as the Christ-idea does to the believers in Christ.
From other lectures you know that for those who enter deeply into the
essence of Christianity Jahve did not really differ very greatly from
the Christ Himself. We must realise far more clearly the inward
connection between the Christ-idea and the Jahve-idea. It is very
difficult to give, in a few words, the whole connection between these
two ideas which has been developed by me in many lectures and cycles
in recent years, but it is possible to show in a parable how this
connection has to be thought of. We have but to recall the symbol of
the sunlight to which your attention has often been directed; how
this comes to us either directly from the sun or reflected back from
the moon at night, especially when the moon is at the full. Sunlight
comes to us from the full moon, but reflected sunlight, which is
somewhat different from direct sunlight. Were we to compare the
Christ with direct sunlight, then Jahve might be likened to sun-light
reflected from the moon; this represents exactly what is met with
here in the evolution of mankind. Those who understand such things
can feel the passing over of the reflection of Christ into Jehova, or
of Jehova into Christ, as men feel the difference between moonlight
and sunlight — Jahve being an indirect and Christ a direct
revelation of the same Being. But in thinking of
“evolution,” we must think of things side by side in
space, and following each other in time. Those who have to speak of
such things from the occult point of view say: — If we call the
religion of Christ a “sun-religion” (and we can use this
expression when we remember what has been said concerning
Zarathustra) then the religion of Jahve can be called a
moon-religion.

So in the period
preceding Christianity, we have a sun-religion prepared for by a
moon-religion. What has just been said will only be rightly
appreciated by those who know that symbols are not chosen
arbitrarily, but are deeply rooted in the things they represent. When
any religion or world-faith is represented by a symbol, this
represents, for those who know how to interpret it, the essential
thing in that religion. Perhaps men have lost understanding to-day to
a certain extent of a symbolism which sees the moon as representing
the religion of Jahve, and also of the connection between the
Christian religion and the symbol of the sun; but where thoughts are
completely filled with the meaning of such symbols they have to be
considered.

Call to mind how I
have described the whole course of human evolution. First we have a
descending evolution which began when man was first driven out of the
spiritual world and entered ever more deeply into matter. This is a
descending path. When we picture the general course of human
evolution we think of the deepest point as having been reached at the
time the Impulse of Christ entered, and that through this Impulse the
descending direction was gradually changed to an ascending one.

In human evolution we
have at first a descending path, then after the deepest point is
reached the Christ-Impulse begins to affect it and will continue to
do so till earth reaches the end of its mission.

Now evolution occurs
in a very complicated way; certain conditions of its progress are the
result of Impulses which had been given at an earlier time. It was an
evolutionary event such as this that took place through the
Christ-Impulse. The Christ-Impulse was poured forth at the beginning
of our era and advanced in a direct line, and growing ever more and
more powerful it will permeate all human life until earthly evolution
has reached its goal. This is an impulse that was imparted once, and
we have to picture it as advancing in a straight line; any evolution
that arose later, is seen through it to be at a higher and more
perfect stage. There are many such impulses, and also others,
affecting the evolution of the world which work differently, and
cannot he said to advance on straight lines. We distinguished in
post-Atlantean evolution the ancient Indian civilisation, following
it the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, then the Greco-Latin;
and in the middle of this period the Christ-Event took place. In the
fifth post-Atlantean age, in which we are now living, certain things
are repeated which occurred in the third age — the
Egypto-Chaldean — but a somewhat different way, and so that
between them and maintaining a certain relationship between the third
and the fifth ages we have the Christ-Impulse. This relation-ship is
maintained in the same way between the sixth age and the second, and
between the seventh and the first. We are here concerned with
powerful factors of evolution which are revealed in such a way that
in referring to them we can make use of the Biblical expression:
— “The first shall be last.” The primeval Indian
age will reappear in the seventh age in another form — yet so
that it will be recognisable.

There is another way
in which an earlier is seen to affect a later, and this is shown
through the fact that we can distinguish smaller epochs. Thus, what
took place in pre-Christian times during the ancient Hebrew
civilisation appears again in a certain way in post-Christian times
— overpassing the Christ-Impulse as it were-ideas which had
been prepared within the religion of Jehova appeared again, and, in
spite of other factors being present, had an effect on these later
times.

Were I to explain
symbolically what I cannot deal with adequately to-day owing to the
short time at my disposal I might say: — If we feel that the
religion of Jehova is represented by the symbol of the moon in
contradistinction to the sun, we might expect that a similar belief,
overpassing Christianity, would re-emerge at a later day. This did
occur, and if such things are not accepted in an external sense or
smiled at for they are deeply connected with the symbolism of
religions — we may say that the old moon religion of Jehova
appeared again in the religion of the half-moon, the Crescent, that
its influence, which had preceded the Christ-Event, was carried over
into post-Christian times. The repetition of an earlier age in a
later is seen with overwhelming results in the last third of the
Greco-Latin period, which is reckoned by us in an occult sense as
continuing to about the 12th-13th century. This means that after
having been separated from it by a period of six hundred years, we
have a kind of repetition of the moon religion of Jehova in the
religion brought by the Arabs from Africa into Spain. It is not
possible to specify here all the characteristics it brought with it.
But it is important that we should impress on our souls the fact that
in the religion of Mahomet the Christ-Impulse was at first
disregarded, that in it we have really a kind of revival of the
religion of Moses — the religion of the one indivisible God.
Only into the idea of this indivisible God-head something was
introduced that had come over from the other side — from the
Egypto-Chaldean view-point — which preserved very exact
traditions concerning the relationship of the starry heavens to
worldly events. Hence many of the thoughts and ideas found among the
Chaldeans, Babylonians and Assyrians are found again in the religion
of Mahomed, but permeated in an extra-ordinary way with what we might
call the teaching concerning the indivisible divinity of Jehova.
Speaking scientifically what meets us in Arabism is a synthesis of
all that was taught by the priests of Egypt and Chaldea, and in the
Jahve religion of the ancient Hebrews.

In a union of this
kind there is not only a compression, but there is also always
something excluded and left behind. Everything which led to
clairvoyant perception was excluded from it. What remained was merely
a matter of intellectual research, of a combining of thought, so that
all the ideas connected with the Egyptian art of healing and Chaldean
astronomy, which both among the Egyptians and the Chaldeans was the
outcome of ancient clairvoyance, is found in an intellectual and
individualistic form in the Arabism of Mahomet.

Something filtered
into Europe along with the Arabs by which all the old ideas that had
prevailed among the Egyptians and Chaldeans were stripped of their
clairvoyant imaginative content and given abstract forms. From this
sprang the marvellous science which the Arabs brought from Africa to
Europe by way of Spain. If Christianity brought an impulse mainly for
the souls of men, then the great Impulse for the human head, for the
intellect, came through the Arabs. Those who are not fully acquainted
with the course of human evolution have no idea what the mental
outlook, which appeared anew under the symbol of the moon, gave to
humanity as a whole. Keppler and Copernicus would not have been
possible without this Impulse which the Arabs brought to Europe. The
whole method of thought, the manner in which different religious
views were connected with the laying aside of the old
clairvoyance, is seen again in our modern astronomy and modern
science when the third period of culture celebrated its revival in
our fifth age. Thus we have to see the evolution of man progressing
on the one hand, so that the Impulse of Christ reaches the people of
Europe directly by way of Greece and Italy; and, on the
other hand, we see it taking a more southernly route which, leaving
Greece and Italy on one side, unites with what came to us through the
Arabs.

By the union of the
religion of Christ with that of Mahomet there arose, during this most
important period with which we are dealing, what really forms the
content of our culture. From causes which cannot be gone into to-day,
we must reckon a period of from six to six-and-ahalf centuries for
such an impulse to develop; so that the renewed moon-culture actually
arose, spread, and entered Europe six hundred years after the Event
of Christ, and until the thirteenth century it enriched that
Christian civilisation which had received its direct irnpulses by
other paths. Even those who only observe the external course of
events know that, however much they are opposed to Arabism, Arabian
thought and science entered even into the cloisters of Western
Europe, and up to the middle of the thirteenth century (which again
indicates something important) we have a blending of these two
impulses — the Arabian and the direct Christ-Impulse.

We may say that the
sun-symbol and the moon-symbol were merged into one from the fifth
and sixth centuries until between the twelfth and thirteenth, this
being again a period that lasted for about six hundred years. After
this direct union had reached its goal some-thing new arose which had
been in gradual preparation since the twelfth and thirteenth century.
It is interesting to note that even external sciences recognise that
some-thing inexplicable passed through the souls of the people of
Europe at that time. External science calls it
“inexplicable,” but occultism says that, following the
direct Impulse of Christ, there was poured by spiritual means into
the souls of men what the fourth period of post-Atlantean culture had
to give. The age of Greece threw up a following wave of culture
called the culture of the Renaissance, it enriched everything that
already existed through the centuries that followed. This was because
the age of Greece, which occurred in the middle of the seven periods
of post-Atlantean civilisation, underwent a certain renewal in the
culture of the Renaissance.

This points again to
a period of six hundred years — that is up to our own time
— in which this wave of Greek culture has to a certain extent
been exhausted. We are living within this period. We are living
to-day in an atmosphere (as we are again at the beginning of a
sixhundred-year-long wave of culture) into which some-thing new is
pressing; an age which must again be enriched with something new from
the Christ-Impulse. After the Moon-cult had its revival in the
religion of the Crescent during the Renaissance, the time is now come
when the Christ-Impulse, which continued as the direct stream, has to
receive into it a neighbouring stream. Our age is powerfully
attracted towards this neighbouring stream; only we must clearly
understand what the addition of it to our civilisation means. All
these things are absolutely in accordance with the correct progress
of an occult system.

If we think of Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Sun, according to the old-not the new sequence
— we may expect, after the renewal of the Moon-wave during the
Renaissance, the influx of another stream to which we can quite
correctly assign the symbol of Mercury. We might therefore say
theoretically when this symfiol appeared that we were confronted with
the influx into our culture of a wave of a kind of Mercury-influence,
just as the wave of Arabism was called a Moon-influence.

If we understand the
evolution of our own time aright we may describe Goethe as the last
great mind who united in himself the fullness of science, of
Christianity, and of the culture of the Renaissance; and we might
expect that his soul would reveal a beautiful union of these —
intellectualism enriched as it had been by Arabism and Christianity.
If we study Goethe as we have been accustomed to do for some years
past, it is easily seen that these elements did indeed meet within
his soul. But in accordance with what has just been announced
concerning the repeated cycle of six, and again six centuries, we
might expect that nothing of the Mercury element could have appeared
as yet in Goethe's soul, that could only appear as something
new after his time. Now it is interesting to note that Goethe's
pupil, Schopenhauer, reveals this Mercury influence. You can learn
from some of my publications that Eastern wisdom entered into
Schopenhauer's philosophy, especially in the form of Buddhism.
Mercury was regarded as the symbol of Buddhism, and following on the
age of Goethe we have a revival of the Buddha-Impulse (in which
Buddha stands for Mercury and Mercury for Buddha) in the same way as
the moon is symbolic of Arabism. We can now give a name to this
neighbouring stream that entered the direct Christ-Impulse as a new
tributary at the beginning of a new six-hundred-yearly epoch. We have
to see in this neighbouring stream a revival of Buddhism only with
the restrictions I explained in my public lectures on Buddha.
[ 1 ]

We now ask —
which is the direct stream of the culture of the future? The
Christ-stream! It advances in a direct line. And what neighbouring
streams are there? We have first the Arabian stream, which flowed
into the direct stream, paused for a time, and then received
purification through the culture of the Renaissance. At present we
are experiencing a renewed influx of the Buddha stream. When these
facts are seen in their right light, we realise that we have to
absorb certain elements out of the Buddha-stream which until now
could not be received into our Western civilisation. We have to see
how these elements of the Buddha-stream must pass into the spiritual
development of the west. Such things, for instance, as the idea of
reincarnation and Karma. These must be accepted. But one fact must be
firmly impressed on our souls: — All these neighbouring streams
will never be able to throw light on the central facts of our
spiritual science. To question Buddhism or any other pre-Christian
oriental religion that may have appeared as a revival in our time
concerning the Christ, would be as sensible as for a European
Christian to have questioned the Arabs of Spain concerning the nature
of Christ!

The people of Europe
were well aware that no conception of the Christ could come from the
Arabs. If they had anything to say their ideas would not accord with
the real Christ-idea. The various prophets who arose as false
Messiahs up to Schabbathoi Zewi were really the outcome of Arabism,
and had no knowledge of the Christ-Impulse. We must understand that
the neighbouring stream of Arabism had to he made fruitful by quite
other elements, not by solving in any way the central mystery of
Christ. This must also be our attitude towards the stream which
approaches us to-day, as the renewal of an ancient one, bringing us
understanding of reincarnation and karma, but being incapable of
imparting understanding of the Christ-Impulse. For this would be as
absurd as to think the Arabs could impart a right conception of
Christ to the people of Europe. They imparted many ideas concerning
false Messiahs to Europe up to the time of Schabbathoi Zewi, and such
things will occur again, for human evolution only progresses when
strengthened by seeing through such deceptions. We must
penetrate ever more deeply and consciously into these connections.
Facts will show that the spiritual science founded by European
Rosicrucians, with Christ as its central idea, will be established in
the souls of men against all opposition and all misleadings.

How the central-idea
of the Christ must enter men's souls, how the Christ must be
interwoven, not only with the general evolution of man, but with the
whole world, can he gathered from my book on
“Outline of Occult Science.”

From it you can find
which is the direct, the forward path. Everyone has the possibility
of hearing of this path who understands the words from the Gospel of
Matthew quoted at the end of the last lecture: — “False
Christs and false prophets will appear when people will say unto you:
Lo, here is the Christ or lo, there! believe it not.”

Alongside the
Buddhistic stream of thought is another far removed from it, which
thinks it is better in-formed regarding the Christ than the western
spiritual science of the Rosicrucians. It brings all kinds of ideas
and teachings into the world which have developed quite naturally out
of the neighbouring oriental Buddhist stream. It would show the worst
kind of weakness in western souls if they were unable to grasp the
fact that the Buddha, or Mercury-stream, has as little light to throw
on the direct course of the Christ-idea as Arabism has. This is not
put forward from any spirit of dogmatism or fantasy, but from
knowledge of the objective course of the evolution of the world. It
can be proved by figures or by the trend of civilisations if you wish
to follow them up, that things must be as is taught by occult
science.

Added to this there
is also the necessity to distinguish between an ancient orthodox
Buddhism which seeks to transplant a non-progressive Buddhism into
Europe, and out of it to develop a “Christ-idea;” and a
truly progressive Buddhism. This means, there are people who speak of
Buddha as follows: — “Look to Buddha, who lived some five
to six hundred years before our era! Look to what he taught!”
What such people say is comparable with what spiritual science says
in a Rosicrucian sense: — “It is your fault, not
Buddha's, that you speak as if Buddha had remained at the same
stage at which he stood five to six centuries before our era I Can
you not think or imagine that Buddha has progressed?” When
speaking thus, these people refer to a teaching suited to a time long
past; of a teaching given by Buddha five to six centuries before our
era. But we look to a Buddha who has advanced, and who from spiritual
realms exercises his enduring influence on human culture. We look to
the Buddha we presented to you in our studies on the Gospel of Luke,
whose influence came from the Jesus of the Nathan line of the house
of David; we look to the Buddha as he has evolved further in
spiritual realms, and who imparts truths to us to-day concerning the
things of which we are speaking.

Something very
curious has happened to dogmatic Christianity in the West; through a
strange concatenation of circumstances it has come to pass that a
Buddha-like form has appeared by chance among Christian Saints.

You will recall how
once I spoke of a legend told all over Europe in the Middle Ages, the
legend of Balaam and Josaphat. It was somewhat as follows: —
There was once an Indian king on earth. He had a son. This son was
brought up at first far removed from all human misery; from all
external life. He lived in the king's palace, where he saw only
what conduced to human happiness. He was called Josaphat; the name
has been much changed and has assumed various forms — Josaphat,
Judasaph, Budasaph. Josaphat lived up to a certain age in the palace
without learning anything of the world. Then one day it happened that
he left his father's palace and learnt something of life. He
first saw a leper, then a blind man, then an aged man. We are then
told that he met a Christian hermit called Balaam. By him he was
converted to Christianity.

You will not fail to
notice that this legend has a strong resemblance to the legend of
Buddha. But you will also notice that something is added to this
legend of the Middle Ages with which Buddha cannot be charged;
namely, that he allowed himself to be converted to Christianity. This
legend gave rise to a certain consciousness among Christians —
among some of them at least — who had made calendars of the
saints.

People knew that the
name Josaphat or Budasaph is connected with the name
“Bodhisattva.” Budasaph passes directly over into
Bodhisattva. So that there is here an extraordinary and deep
connection between a Christian legend and the figure of Buddha. The
oriental legend, as we know, represents Buddha as entering Nirvana
and passing on the Bodhisattva crown to his successor the
Maytreya-Buddha, who is now a Bodhisattva, and will later become the
future Buddha of the world. Buddha appears again in the legend as
Josaphat. The connection between Buddhism and Christianity is
described marvellously by someone who said: — Josaphat is a
saint, and Buddha was himself so holy that according to the legend he
was converted to Christianity from being the son of an Indian king;
so he can be ranked among the saints although from one side he was
regarded as a heathen.

You can see from this
that it was known where the later form of Buddhism, or rather of
Buddha, has to be sought. Buddhism and Christianity have meanwhile
flowed one into the other in the hidden worlds. And Salaam is that
strange figure who made the Bodhisattva acquainted with Christianity,
so that when now we trace the course of Buddhism as an enduring
world-movement in the sense of this legend, we can only see it in the
changed form in which it exists at the present time. We are obliged
to speak of Buddha as he exists for us to-day, when clairvoyantly we
understand what he reveals to us.

Just as Arabism was
not Judaism, and the Moon of Jehova did not reappear in Arabism in
its old form, so neither does Buddhism reappear in its old form when
it returns to enrich the culture of the West, but changed. For a
later never appears as an exact replica of an earlier.

These short detached
remarks are intended to act as a stimulus to thoughts on human
evolution, which you can develop further for yourselves. And I assure
you if you accept all the historical knowledge that it is possible to
discover, and are really able to follow the spiritually scientific
development of Europe, you will see that we are standing at present
at the point where Christianity and Buddhism flow one into the
other.

Just as at the time
of which I have been speaking a union of the Jahve-religion with
Christianity occurred, so to-day a union of Buddhism with
Christianity is taking place. Test this by accepting all that the
historians of Europe are able to give you! Test it, but not as they
are wont to do, take all the factors into consideration; you will
then find confirmation of what I have said. Only we should have to
speak for weeks if we were to give out all that reaches us from the
direction of European Rosicrucianism.

But it is not only in
history that proof can be found, if you go to work in the right way
you can find it also in natural science and in allied realms. You
have only to look in the right way to find that new ideas appear
everywhere sporadically at the present day, and that old ideas become
useless and disappear. Our thinkers and investigators seem to work
with ideas that have become ineffectual, because in the widest sense
they are incapable as yet of accepting and making use of other lines
of thought, such as those of reincarnation and karma, and all that
theosophy has to give. You can search the modern literature of the
various departments of science, there you will find what is so
painful for those who know how fact after fact appears in scientific
life and nowhere are ideas capable of grasping them. There is one
such idea that plays an important part in science to-day — the
idea of heredity. (These things can only be hinted at here.) The idea
of heredity as it is put forward in various departments of science
and even in popular literatures to-day is simply untenable.

People must learn
facts, for the understanding of which other kinds of ideas are
required -such, for instance, as those entirely useless ideas
concerning “heredity” that are common to-day. Certain
facts, well known to-day concerning heredity in man and in other
creatures, will only be understood when quite different ideas
prevail. When heredity is spoken of to-day, people seem to think that
any faculties that appear in the human being can be traced to his
immediate forefathers. The idea of rein-carnation and karma will
first make it possible for clear ideas to emerge instead of the
present confusion. It will be realised that a great part of what is
found in human nature has nothing to do with what is called the
mutual co-operation of the sexes — for a confused science still
teaches that all man is to-day comes from the union of the male and
female elements at conception. It is not at all true that all the
things appearing in a man have to do with physical inheritance. These
matters must be gone into more thoroughly. I only put them before you
to-day as a stimulus to further thought.

When you consider the
physical body of man you know that it has a long history behind it
— it has passed through the Saturn epoch, the Sun epoch and the
Moon epoch — now it is passing through the Earth epoch. It was
only during the Moon epoch that the influence of the astral body
appeared. This did not exist previously, and the physical body has
naturally been very much changed by it. Hence we do not see the
physical body as it was under the forces of the Saturn and Sun
epochs, but only as it has become under the influence of these forces
added to those of the astral body and the ego.

Only the physical
body can be inherited through co-operation of the sexes, for this
depends on the influence of the astral on the physical body;
everything appertaining to laws going back to the Saturn and Sun
epochs has nothing whatever to do with this. One part of human nature
is received directly from the cosmos, not from the opposite sex. This
means that what we have in us does not spring altogether from the
union of the sexes, for this is dependent on what comes from our
astral bodies, but a large part of our human nature — that
which comes from the mother for example — is received directly
from the macrocosm.

We have therefore to
distinguish one part of our human nature as being the result of the
intercourse of the sexes, and another part as received directly by
the mother from the macrocosm. Clarity will only be reached in
respect of this when we succeed in distinguishing the separate parts
of human nature, concerning which there is the greatest confusion at
the present day. The physical body is not something shut off within
itself, but is formed from the combined activity of the ether body,
astral body and ego; again we distinguish the forces that have to be
ascribed to the direct influence of the macrocosm, and others that
have to be ascribed to the co-operation of the sexes.

But something is also
received from the paternal nature that has nothing to do with
physical inheritance. Just as certain organs and laws having nothing
to do with physical inheritance are received directly from the
macrocosm, and are implanted in the organism by means of the mother;
other laws are received from the macrocosm through the
instrumentality of the father's organism and follow a spiritual
path. It can be said of that which is received by way of the mother
— her organism provides the moment of contact (Angriffsmoment).
But this that is active in the organism of the mother has not its
source in any co-operation of the sexes, but it co-operates with what
comes from the father, and this also does not spring from any union
of the sexes, but from the paternal element. It is therefore a world
event — a macrocosmic event that takes place, and finds
expression in a physical way. People are entirely mistaken when they
describe the development of the human embryo as being only the
outcome of heredity. It is the result of what is received directly
from the macrocosm.

I have spoken here of
facts that far transcend the ideas of science; they are ideas
originating from very ancient epochs. Does anything show us this?
Popular literature tells us very little about it, but it is clearly
evident on the plane of occult endeavour. I should like here to tell
you something. I can indeed only hint at it, but would like to point
out what a remarkable difference there is between two natural
scientists and thinkers of the present day who had, however, been
brought up in different circles and with widely different ideas. The
characters of the two men are clearely revealed in what follows.

We have in the first
place Haeckel, who because he elaborated his marvellous facts with
most primitive ideas, led everything back to heredity and presented
the whole embryonic evolution as dependent on heredity; opposed to
him is the investigator His, who held more to facts, concerning whom
it was objected, with a certain amount of truth, that he thought too
little. His was a Zoologist and Naturalist. Because of the special
way he traced out facts, he was constrained to oppose the heredity
theory of Haeckel, and pointed out that certain organs and
organic formations in man can only be explained when we turn away
from the idea that we have to thank the co-operation of the sexes
for our origin, Haeckel makes fun of this and writes: —
“Therefore Herr His ascribes the origin of the human body to a
certain ‘virginal’ influence that does not depend on the
co-operation of the sexes!”

This is absolutely
correct. For scientific facts force us to acknowledge to-day that
what is brought about through co-operation of the sexes has to be
kept apart from that which comes directly from the macrocosm, which,
naturally, for wide circles is an absurd idea.

From this it can be
seen that even on scientific grounds we are driven towards new ideas.
We are placed in the midst of an evolution that says: — If the
facts that have been imparted to you are to be rightly understood you
must acquire a whole host of new ideas, for the ideas that have come
down from olden times do not reach far enough.

From what I have said
you will see that a neighbouring stream must enter our culture
— this is the “Mercury stream”; its presence is
revealed through the fact that those who go through an occult
development, such as has frequently been described by me, evolve
towards the spiritual world, and by doing so experience many new
facts. These facts stream towards them, they stream into their souls.
We might compare the entrance of man into another world with the
passing of a fish from the water into the air; the fish has first to
be prepared for this by changing its air bladders into lungs. This
resembles the transition from sense perception to spiritual
perception, whereby a man's soul is made capable of employing
certain forces in a different element. Many things are then revealed
to him.

The air is full of
thoughts to-day which make it necessary for us to grasp the new facts
of science now appearing on the physical plane. As investigator of
the super-sensible one participates in things pressing in from all
sides. This could not have been before the entrance of the new stream
of which I have spoken. When these facts are rightly understood, it
will be realised we are living in an extraordinarily important age,
one in which it is quite impossible for us to continue to live unless
some such change takes place in human thought and feeling as I have
declared to be necessary.

Man must learn to
live in a new element just as the fish that is accustomed to live in
water has to learn to live in a new element when compelled to live in
air. We must learn to live with our thoughts within those facts which
the physical plane produces. Anyone who rejects these thoughts is
like a fish taken out of the water. Man must not remain in the water.
If he did, his later life would be “airless” as regards
spiritual ideas — he would gasp for air. Those people who
desire to live within the monism of to-day resemble fish who have
exchanged their watery abode for an airy one, but would like to
retain their gills. Only human souls who have changed their
faculties, whose thoughts have evolved to a new wait of accepting
facts, will grasp what the future has to bring.

So with full
understanding we feel we are standing at the confluence of two
world-wide streams of thought — the one should bring us a deeper
comprehension of the Christ-problem and of the Mystery of Golgotha;
the other new conceptions and ideas concerning reality. They must of
necessity flow one into the other in our day; and not cease to do so
even though they encounter the worst of obstacles. For the periods in
which such streams of thought meet are fraught with many checks and
hindrances. In some respects it is the people who rely on spiritual
science who find themselves in a position to understand such
things.

Many of our members
might perhaps say with reference to the teaching given here: —
What you tell us is difficult of comprehension, we have to work at it
for a long time. Why can you not give us a more comfort-able diet,
that we might absorb more easily what is able to convince us of the
spiritual nature of the world? Why do you lay such stress on
understanding the world?” Many might say this and add: —
“How much more beautiful it would be if we might believe in a
Buddhism that has come down to us from the past; if we did not have
to think of the Christ-Event as the single point on which
the balance rests, that no other is to be compared with it, but might
think that a Being like the Christ would incarnate again and again as
other men do. Why do you not say — here or there such a one
will appear in the flesh! Instead you say men must make themselves
capable of experiencing a renewal of the event of Damascus. If only
you would say: — ‘One will come in the flesh,’ then
we could say: — ‘Behold, He is here!’ We could
then see Him with our physical eyes! This would be much easier to
understand!”

That such things have
been said is the concern of others. The task of western spiritual
science is to make the truth known; to declare the truth with full
responsibility and understanding of what lies within the evolution
that has brought us thus far.

Those who desire to
be comfortable in the spiritual world must seek spirituality along
some other path. But -those who desire the truth, such truth as is
required in our day — which has need of all the intelligence
won in the time of old clairvoyance and preserved until the dawn of
the new clairvoyance — will, I am very sure, follow the path
indicated in the words spoken to-day and on many other occasions.

What is most
important is not that we should say in what form we desire truth, but
that we should know from the whole course of human evolution that the
truth must necessarily be spoken at a certain point of time. O! there
are many other things that must be said! But for these things you
shall not go unprepared.

Therefore again and
again within our Rosicrucian spiritual movement things will be said
which stand at the very summit of the spiritual knowledge of our day.
You need never accept what is said here or elsewhere with blind
belief, blind belief is never appealed to here. In your intelligence,
in the employment of your own understanding you have the means for
testing what is said. You may frequently hear it said: Take the whole
of life, all science, everything you are able to experience, and test
them by what is given out within the stream of Rosicrucian spiritual
life. Do not fail to ex-amine everything — you will find it
stands the test! You who live within our movement know this, but you
must not fail to apply the test. For it is precisely where opposition
stirs, when on the ground of true spirituality perhaps, the direct
opposite appears, that belief alone does not suffice. Everything that
rests on blind belief is sterile and stillborn. It may be easy to
build on blind faith, but those who belong to the spiritual life of
the West renounce it. They build on that which the human intellect
can scrutinize.r Those who are in touch with the sources from which
our Rosicrucian spiritual teaching comes say of it: — After
scientific examination, this is how things are found to be! The
edifice of spiritual science is raised on a foundation of truth I
This is a foundation of no easy belief! Our edifice is raised on the
foundation of a carefully tested if perhaps difficult truth, and the
prophets of a blind and comfortable faith are in no way able to shake
the foundations on which the edifice of Spiritual Science is
raised!